In 1984, the military government
of Muhammadu Buhari jailed Fela Kuti for allegedly smuggling foreign exchange
into Nigeria.
The late Afrobeat creator went on
to spend 20 months in prison and upon his release, the musician was as defiant
and bold as ever.
Fela spoke about his prison
experience in an interview granted after he regained his freedom.
The interview, republished by
Reelin’ In The Years, sees the Afrobeat legend talk about embracing boredom in
prison, developing his thought process and arming himself for an encore behind
bars.
Here is an excerpt from the
sit-down.
“Prison didn’t change my life, it
developed my way of thinking. I am very spiritually inclined. I am in prison,
it gave me a lot of time to meditate and think about what this world is really
about. It [gave] me knowledge about time. If anybody tells me 20 years is a long
time, I will tell him no because prison has taught me that time is meaningless
unless you want to understand what time is all about.
“I did not think about music in
the prison but maybe a few times some sounds come into my head but I don’t
write them down, maybe just hum them.
“What I did in prison was not to
play games, I tried not to talk too much, I tried to remain by myself. I just
tried to meditate. That’s all I did.
“You see, prison is supposed to
get you bored. So when people go in there, they try not to get bored. So I tell
myself, ‘okay, you want to make me bored. I am going to get myself bored so
that I will not be afraid to go in next time.
“So I go in there to understand
what boredom is about. So it gave me a knowledge about patience. Those are the
kind of things prison has taught me. I am prepared to go back. I am really
prepared.”
Indeed, Fela was prepared as he
would go on to have more brushes with the law before his death in 1997.
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